Spring Green
by Chocobo-Cloud
Summary: “I love China, Roxas. I love the people, I love your culture.” The redhead sat up and grinned. “The only thing I don’t love is the weather!” Roxas laughed at this and nodded in agreement. /“Then why will you go?” AkuRoku. For Isamu-Michi and Rufus!


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**A/N**- Hello everyone! I hope you're all having/had a fantastic Chinese New Year or Valentines Days! (If you put it together, it's Chinese Love Day!)

Below is a one-shot I have written. I think it's one of my first AkuRoku stories I've posted on here, so—yey! C: I really love that pairing. Anyway, I have some important notes about this story after the writing, so please check them out if you'd like! They really give an insight to everything! But, without further ado, please enjoy! Also—dedicated to my best friend, because you can do anything that you want when you grow up, and I believe in you, and Isamu-Michi, because she wanted to see a one-shot from me!

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To say that the small university classroom was hot would have been an understatement. The room, with only two windows along the west wall, was currently filled with eighteen college students. Eighteen sweltering, oppressive students and one blistering English professor.

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_I didn't sign up for this_. Axel scanned the classroom, looking from student to student. The young adults looked uncomfortably hot in their starchy cotton uniforms, but the eager smiles on their faces reminded the redheaded professor from America that this was a _typical _Chinese summer. 93º in mid May was typical, and unfortunately for Axel, who had lived in breezy San Francisco, California his whole life, the heat was almost to the point of becoming unbearable.

"Alright, Roxas. Can you share with us the poem you've written?" Axel called. The blond haired student fidgeted in his seat and ran a thin hand through his unruly, fine hair before standing up from his seat.

"In English?" Roxas asked. Axel chuckled softly. _He's always been the one to ask. _

"Well, Roxas, this is English class, so if you would like to recite your poem in English, that would be very much acceptable." The boys and girls of Axel's afternoon English class shared a collective, good-humored laugh that caused Roxas' cheeks to tint pink (even though in the heat of the room, no one could really tell), but listened respectively at the small blond opened his mouth.

"Just last night / A tiger come to my side / Folks paid no attention to it / I hid also my shock / What does tiger imply? / At midnight, among a crowd / You wants to get to the bottom of it / I am just another tiger." Roxas finished the last line in a small murmur and sat down, his face visibly redder than before as he stared at the paper upon his desk. Axel's jade eyes widened in surprise of the poem his student had just presented. In the five months that Axel had been teaching the students of a local, underpaid Chinese university in Canton, Roxas, who was secretly Axel's favorite student, had never written anything in such perfect tense and form. It filled the redhead's heart with the sense and feeling that he had indeed did something right in his teachings.

"Did you really write that, Roxas?" The question came from Roxas' cousin, Sora, who sat directly behind the boy.

"Sora, be polite," Axel chided. He smiled to the blond to show his amazement. "Roxas, that was fantastic. You had a only two tense flip-flops that I could point out, but the poem itself was beautiful!"

"_Mh goi_."

"This is English class, Roxas," Axel teased. The blond gave an exaggerated huff as his brain scrambled to find the correct phrase to use.

"…Thank you."

"There you go." Axel opened his mouth to call on another student (particularly, one silver headed student that had fallen asleep in the back of the classroom) but the opportunity was lost when the bell sounded and rang though the small classroom like a relief almost as rewarding as a gust of cool wind. The students packed up their things and hurried out the door. It was lunchtime, and no one wanted to be the last one outside. That would mean that all of the spots under the young banyan tree would be taken and late students would be forced to sit in the grass with the sun beating down on their backs.

"Thank you for your teachings, Professor Axel!" A group of girls called before hurrying off down the hall. Axel nodded to them and smiled as other individuals came up and bowed, thanking the English professor for his time. The redhead turned and began filing loose papers away into miscellaneous folders sitting upon his desk. While doing so, Axel unbuttoned the first three buttons of his shirt and pulled at the material so that it wouldn't stick to his torso. _What I wouldn't give for an ocean breeze right now. _The American professor wished that he could've just taken the whole darned thing off, but knew better than to do so with a student still in the room. As the last paper was tucked away, Axel turned and looked at Roxas who was still sitting at this desk, a worn canvas bag sitting atop the blond's desk. Axel smiled at the bag.

The staff had informed Axel during his second week of teaching that Roxas belonged to a family that was on the verge of living in poverty. The other teachers had told the American that after Roxas' American father, who had worked as a translator in China, had died while the boy was only 12, his mother and his aunt (Sora' mother) had been the only ones that had stayed behind. While Sora's family had tried to provide for the blond and his mom, it was impossible to supply full support with their budgets already so tight. Thus, Roxas had two jobs, one before school, and one after. It was just enough to support himself and his mother, who Axel had seen once down by the river, washing clothes in the stream.

Axel had never brought up the subject, but after a few weeks of warming up to the foreign man, Roxas had told Axel everything, but made him promise to not pity him. _"I'm doing good with the life that I live. I don't want you to feel bad for me," _Roxas had said. _"I won't, Roxas. I believe in you," _Was Axel's promise. And that, as they say, was that. School life went on as usual, and neither young adults had brought it up since.

"Why don't you go to lunch, Roxas? I'm sure Sora will be wondering where you are," Axel suggested. But, it wasn't so much of a suggestion any more as it was a routine statement. Ever since Axel's first day at the university, a cold day in January, Roxas had stayed behind even after the bell had rung. Sora probably no longer even worried about where his cousin was.

"When will you go, Professor?" Roxas asked. The blond was happy that Axel allowed him to stay and talk after class every day, but the redhead had made him promise that he would speak English while in the classroom. _'It's the only way you'll become comfortable with the language_," Axel had said.

"Do you mean back to America, Roxas?"

"Yes. America. Back to your sister, little Kairi, you call her? And, that place you always talk of… California. When will you go?" Roxas looked up into his teacher's foreign face and smiled softly. Axel walked around to the front of his desk and sat down on the top of it, thinking about the question.

"Yeah, Lil' Kairi. Her birthday is actually the last day that I will be here. She'll be six. And, I'll be going back to California by the end of the month. So, about 10 days or so," he answered. Roxas' face fell slightly in response to the answer.

"Oh, I see." The blond played with his hands for a while, wringing them in thought. "Do you like teaching we, Professor?"

"Teaching _us_."

"Oh, yes. Teaching _us_. Do you?"

"Of course I do." Axel leaned back on his desk, looking at the plain white ceiling and staring at the fan in the center of it that had never worked one day in its life. "I love China, Roxas. I love the people, I love your culture," the redhead sat up and grinned, "The only thing I don't love is the weather!" Roxas laughed at this and nodded in agreement.

"Then why do you go?" The boy asked in a gentle tone. Axel's grin softened to a kind smile as he looked at his student. Roxas was always full of questions, always asking about Axel's life in California and what America was like. But, now that it was close to Axel's departure, the boy seemed to be asking more and more questions than usual.

"I was only offered this job for five months. I have to go back so that way I can complete my degree and get a stable job," Axel explained. He saw a look of sadness flicker across Roxas' blue, blue eyes, but also appreciated the student's strong smile.

"You will teach English back home, yes?"

"You know what…" Axel said began," I think I'm going to teach Asian culture." Roxas laughed aloud at this, his face filling with a large smile that overcame him.

"You are funny, Professor Axel! How you teach Asian ways if you don't even speak Chinese well?"

"Hey, your language is hard!"

"And yours is not? So many rules and… rule breakers that don't make sense! Like... wake _up_? Burn _down_? I don't understand these things! Americans speak so funny," Roxas chuckled. Axel smirked.

"Yeah, I guess we do, don't we?" Roxas was about to answer before a shout came from outside the classroom window.

"Roxas! _Fai d La!_" Sora's voice called from the school grounds. Axel glanced out the window to see Sora and the boys' friend, Riku, standing below. The blond hurried over to the window, smiled, and waved them off.

"_Ngóhdeih hái godouh gin_!" The boy shouted. Roxas smiled to Axel and bowed politely. "Thank you for today class, Professor."

"Of course, Roxas." Axel watched as the blond ran down the hallway with a smile before unpacking his own lunch and eating it, all the while listening to Roxas, Sora, and Riku chat below the window to one another in the beautiful language of Cantonese.

_I will truly miss them when I have to return. _

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Axel's final 10 days passed like a whirlwind of hot summer afternoons for both the professor and his favorite student. Axel felt bombarded with the amount of papers he had to type up, and the college he was under demanded that he start typing the 20-page essay about his experience in Canton _before _he returned to the States so that he could 'save time before turning it in'. Roxas, on the other hand, had been just as equally hectic, but was more aggravated about the busyness than Axel was. Break was coming, at the end of Axel's final day, and that meant finals and exams in almost every class. Axel had told the boy that if he needed to study for other classes, it would be fine with him if he wanted to study with Sora and Riku rather than stay after class. Roxas begrudgingly obliged, but came running in after school to tell Axel how his tests were and even the occasional test score that he had received back. But, the final day had approached. Roxas and his peers took Axel's English exam. And, to Axel's delight, almost everyone passed. Even Roxas.

"Congratulations on your exam, Roxas. Your test score was very good," Axel complimented the blond, passing the boy a cookie he had received from one of the girls in class. The boy accepted the sweet and bit into it with a small smile.

"Thank you. Sora made sure that I studied very hard." Roxas stared down at this worn canvas sneakers, the heel of the dark blue shoes almost worn out. Axel laughed at the statement. _Of course he did._ "When will you be leaving tomorrow, Professor?" The question felt sobering to Axel. He wasn't looking forward to leaving the beauty of China and all his wonderful students.

"Early in the morning, around six."

"I see…" Roxas stared at his shoes momentarily before placing the rest of the cookie into his mouth. When the boy looked back up again, Axel's heart clenched at the soft smile of the boy's face. "Little Kairi, she will be happy to see you."

"Heh, I sure hope so! I sent her at least sixteen postcards these past few months. My mom better have been reading them to her."

"Yes, I hope so, too." Roxas and Axel sat in comfortable silence for a while, looking through the cards the girls in the class had made, laughing every once in a while at the silly little drawings they had included, all depicting Axel's crazy red hair. A few minutes later, after the last letter had been read, Roxas stood up and shouldered his messenger bag. Axel stood up as well and patted his student on the shoulder.

"It's been an honorable pleasure to teach you, Roxas. You were one of the brightest students in the class," Axel said, a weary smile on his face.

"T-thank you, Professor Axel. I'll…" Roxas fought to find the correct words to use, trying to keep a strong smile on his face, "I'll miss you." Axel felt his heart lurch in his chest. He had taught his students that phrase only by request of the girls in the class who wanted to woo their boyfriends with sweet phrases in English. Axel never would have imagined that Roxas would've remembered.

"I'll miss you too, Roxas. If the head of the school lets me, I'll write to you and your class every once in a while, okay?"

"Yes…" Roxas' smile was bittersweet, but it grew wider and comforted the pang in Axel's heart, "I'd like that." Roxas waved good-bye, walked down the hallway, and exited the school building as Axel tried to keep a smile on his face.

"_I'll miss you."_

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Axel awoke early the next day, his eyes tired from a seemingly restless sleep. Roxas had crossed his mind more than several times that night, and each and every time the blond appeared in Axel's dreams, the redhead shot up in bed, awake and dreading the coming day even more.

_I didn't sign up for this_.

With a heavy heart, Axel swung his long legs over the side of his bed and shuffled into the bathroom. The American turned on the water on the sink and splashed the cool liquid onto his face. It was hardly enough to clear Axel's head, let alone stop the subtle throbbing of an oncoming headache that was forming behind the man's eyes. Axel shook his head, slapping his cheeks a little bit before shutting off the water and pressing his face into a soft towel. The man turned and walked back into the bedroom, taking deep breaths in an attempt to try and clear his mind for the busy upcoming day. Stripped of his sleep clothes, Axel pulled on a pair of jeans and a clean shirt. The redhead almost had his jacket zipped up.

Almost, that is, before a knock sounded on the door, followed by a nearly inaudible: "Professor Axel?"

"Roxas?"

Axel felt his feet move before the rest of his mind or body could process the action. He ran to the front door of the apartment and threw it open, not caring if it banged against the wall adjacent to the door. Axel could have died happily the moment his emerald eyes locked with cerulean. Roxas stood before him, leaning against the doorframe, breathing heavily. In his small, clenched hands were strips of- "Ribbon?" Axel watched in bewilderment as Roxas took the silk bands of spring green in his hands and pressed them into the redhead's palms. Axel blushed as Roxas' fingers lingered, the feeling as soft as the silk ribbons in his grasp. The blond took a deep breath, his face turning a bright cherry color.

"For Little Kairi," Roxas murmured as the blush spread further across his face. Axel blinked. And blinked again.

"For… my sister?"

"Her birthday," Roxas started, "it was her birthday yesterday, yes?" He curled Axel's fingers around the ribbon and held the redhead's hand with his own smaller ones gently. "Tell her. Little Kairi. Tell her your Chinese student says, '_Sàangyaht Faailohk_'."

"Sàangyaht… Faailohk?" Axel asked, uncomprehending. Roxas dared to look up into the man's eyes, his mouth drawn into a confident line.

"Happy Birthday." The blond's hands gripped tighter against Axel's, and his previously stoic face broke into its habitual small smile. The redhead couldn't believe the present in his hands. _Roxas saved up his money… his hard earned money… and bought a gift… for Kairi._ "And you. Axel-" The said man felt his face heat up. It was the first time Roxas had ever said his name without the respectful _professor_ title in front of it. "-Tell yourself. _Mgoi nei dangmai ngo_."

"Roxas," Axel shook his head, smiling wearily, "I suck at Cantonese. You said so yourself. Please." Roxas laughed goodheartedly, his eyes seemingly sparkling with delight. Boldly, he leaned in next to Axel's ear, causing the man's heart to race, and whispered into it.

"Wait for me, please." Roxas pulled back, his hands clasped behind his back as he waited for Axel's response. The man simply blushed, but couldn't help the smile that continued to grow across his face.

"What do you mean?"

Roxas gave a loud sigh, "I'm speaking English! Even English, you don't understand!" He exclaimed teasingly. The blond sighed again before continuing. "Wait for me, okay?" Roxas pulled away from Axel for a moment, using his hands to explain. "For me to grow. For me to move to America, maybe even that place, California."

Axel eyes widened. _It's… it's not true. I don't believe what I'm hearing. _

"You want to… be with me? In America?" Axel asked breathlessly. Roxas nodded, glad that Axel finally caught on.

"Right! My father, he was a translator. From Chinese to English. I was thinking, last night, and I want to do that, too. I will come to California, there are lots of Asian there, yes?"

"Y-yeah." Axel stammered.

"Yes. I will go to school there. My mom, she has always wanted me to go to America. She is happy with my plan. And I will be a translator from… English to Chinese. I'll go and learn English good-"

"Well."

"Fine, fine. Yes, learn English _well_, and I will help people learn my language. And I will take well- _good_, good care of you," Roxas beamed up at Axel who had walked closer to the blond, his heart beating quickly.

"But… why do you want to come and take care of _me_?" He asked. Axel knew the answer that Roxas had. He knew it; he had heard the Roxas in his dreams say it several times, but he wanted to hear it again from the _real _Roxas. The _real Roxas_, in all his flaxen haired and azure-eyed beauty, smiled.

"Because I love you."

Roxas opened his mouth, perhaps to add something sarcastic, or explain something further in his beautifully broken English, but Axel wouldn't have it. He stepped forward (it was more of a lunge, really, but neither of them were going to say anything against it) and pulled Roxas to him, pressing his lips against Roxas. Axel melted, and he was pretty sure that Roxas might have melted too. The blond's lips felt identical to the silk ribbons in his hands and seemed to automatically move against his in the most perfect, loving way. It was simply, utterly, wholly the most beautiful experience.

When Roxas pulled away (quite reluctantly) and willed air to enter his lungs once more, Axel still held the blond to his chest, his face buried in the young man's spikes.

"I'll wait, Roxas," Axel breathed, "I'll wait for you as long as it takes. I'll stay in California-"

"And you'll write!"

"Yes, and I'll write. I'll write every week. And when you graduate this year, I'll send you a ticket-"

"Axel! You can't. Too expensive!" Roxas protested, squirming against his beloved's chest.

"Not for you, it's not. It'll work out, okay? I'll work hard and get the money, and you'll come and live with me while you become a translator in California," Axel smoothed Roxas' hair with his fingertips. The boy looked up, his eyes faintly watery.

"You serious?"

"Dead serious," Axel whispered. Roxas rolled his eyes and threw his hands into the air.

"There it is again! How can serious be dead? It's not alive, how can it die? I don't understand!" The blond cried. Axel chortled loudly, pulling Roxas to his chest again and hugging him tightly.

"I love you, Roxas."

The Chinese man sighed teasingly and buried in head into Axel's shoulder.

"_Ngo oi ney_, Axel."

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Omake—

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Roxas wrinkled his nose as Axel threw his arm around the man and held out a waxy white bag.

"Crab ragoon?" The redhead offered. Axel's Chinese lover (now an official US citizen) begrudgingly reached into the take out bag and pulled out a fried dumpling.

"This is an _insult _to Chinese food, Axel. An insult!" Roxas took a bite into the crab ragoon with a frown on his face.

"An insult? Baby, this is heaven!" Axel helped himself to another fried dumpling and popped it into his mouth. He moaned aloud and pretended to melt in the deliciousness that could only be identified as American-Chinese take out. Roxas' face turned red as he looked away from the man.

"Save that for the bedroom, you _maa lat zai_."

"Hey!" Axel retorted. "I'm not a pervert!"

"Uhg!" Roxas exclaimed, grabbing Axel by his shoulders and shaking him. "You translate every single phrase that I say! I'm starting to regret ever teaching you Cantonese! Can't you just let me bathe in my Chinese secrecy?!"

"Of course not," Axel said, winking. "Unless by bathing in Chinese secrecy, you mean taking a bath together with you and me having my way with your beautiful Asian-self." Roxas turned impossibly redder.

"If you promise to let me make Chinese food next Chinese New Year, than yes."

Axel had Roxas in the bathtub before the blond could even protest.

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末端

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I hope you all enjoyed it! If you don't recognize a lot of the phrases, it's because Cantonese is the least popularly spoken Chinese language c: But, anyway! Here are some important notes about the story!

1)—This is based on a true story. No joke. Okay, so it wasn't between two males, and they didn't fall in love, but someone in my family (not my immediate family) went to China to teach students, and one of her students, on the last day that she was there, gave her ribbons for my sister and I as a present. As you read the story, Roxas' life is very much like someone's real life c:

2)—I have used Chinese phrases in this story, and in the story, they're in Cantonese (since I'm half-Cantonese and I don't speak Mandarin very well :x ). Cantonese is the language spoken in Canton, China (which is in the South) and is similar, but different than Mandarin. So, sorry for the confusion!

Whatever holiday you are celebrating today, I hope that it goes well for all of you! Reviews would make my Chinese New Year- and, as always, they are loved as much as you all are! –You guys are loved a lot, trust me!-

-Chocobo


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